Dell appears to be feeling the effects of the PC market's downward slide. According to The Register, the company is said to be laying off a large portion of its staff from offices around the world.

Reportedly, Dell is looking to cut 20 percent of its US-based sales staff and 30 percent of its sales and marketing staff from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The company wouldn't say how many people this totaled up to.

Sources familiar with the matter told The Register that along with laying off employees that work in the PC department, Dell is also cutting staff from other departments like enterprise software and storage.

One source told The Register it was "[as if Dell were saying] let's shrink everything."

Global PC shipments for 2013 totaled 315.9 million units, declining 10 percent from 2012. Lenovo overtook Hewlett-Packard as the leading vendor in 2013, while Dell held steady in the third spot.

Dell spokesman David Frink said The Register's report on the layoffs was inaccurate. "The report is inaccurate," he said. "Dell has taken steps to optimize its business, streamline operations and improve its efficiency over the past few years. As always, we'll continue to review our operations in an effort to remain competitive and determine how we can add the most value to customers. Meanwhile, we're also continuing to invest in growing our engineering development, technology solutions and enterprise sales capabilities. We'll continue to make prudent business decisions over time."

Updated January 13 at 6:45 p.m. PTwith comment from Dell spokesman David Frink.

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Dara Kerr is a staff writer for CNET focused on the sharing economy and tech culture. She grew up in Colorado where she developed an affinity for collecting fool's gold and spirit animals.
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